The Dark at the End (Repairman Jack) Read online

  “Can we agree on still improbable, but less so?”

  Szeto shrugged. “If you wish.”

  “Good. Then, as I recall, last summer you were looking for a woman who knew lots more than she should.”

  Szeto’s eyes flashed. “Louise Myers, yes. We know where is bitch but the One does not wish her touched.”

  “But what if we—?”

  “The One has spoken.”

  Hank sighed. The One, the One, the One.

  “Okay. Be that as it may, I recall that she had a protector who killed just about every man you sent against her. A man you never saw and could never find. And the Myers gal comes from that same town as the man Drexler knew as a boy, the one who vanished without a trace.”

  Szeto dropped his feet from the desk and leaned forward. “You really think…?”

  “All I’m saying is we’ve got three guys messing with us—‘Tyleski,’ the Taser guy, and the killer—and no one knows who they are or where they are. They’re untraceable.”

  “But you mention boy.”

  “Yeah. The boy—a fourth guy we can’t find. A circle is a perfect shape, and I see things circling back to a certain boy in that small town in Jersey. Could all four mystery men turn out to be just one guy?”

  Szeto pounded his fist on the desk. “But we do not know where he is!”

  “The boy’s got to have family—”

  “All dead or disappeared.”

  “Then we’re left with Louise Myers, who you’re afraid to touch.”

  Szeto smiled like a snake. “You are free to approach her. Do not let me stop you.”

  Going against the One … uh-uh.

  “Well then, looks like we’re stuck, amigo.”

  “No. Not stuck. He has been to high school and to university. We can get picture—”

  “Right-right-right. Yearbooks.” Hank hadn’t thought of that.

  “And you can see if face is same as Tyleski.”

  “Well, that’ll answer some questions about who he is, but we won’t be any closer to knowing where. Let’s just hope that if the One changes his mind about the Myers babe, he lets your people know. Because she can point us to him, and I sorely want to get my hands on that fucker.”

  Szeto rose to his feet and puffed up behind the desk. “The One speaks to me. He will tell me first.”

  Hank stared at Szeto as the implications of that remark sank in.

  First?

  “I thought he spoke to your boss—”

  “No. Speaks to me. He comes to me for solution to problems. If he does not wish Myers woman disturbed, okay. I am in her hometown many times. I can find other way perhaps.”

  “In Jersey? What for?”

  “Is not your concern. The One gives me many things to do and I am taking care of them all.”

  Many things to do?

  “Like what?”

  That smirk again. “If the One wishes you to know, I am sure he will tell you.”

  Had Drexler been taken out of the loop? Hank didn’t like that. Not one bit. Because if Drexler had been booted aside, Hank might be next.

  … You might be the most surprised of all …

  Hell, he might have been given the boot already and didn’t even know it.

  8

  Dawn followed Dr. Heinze through the Midtown Tunnel onto the Long Island Expressway. Her stomach totally knotted when he turned off on Woodhaven Boulevard and headed south into Rego Park. She’d grown up in this area. He continued on to Forest Hills where he eventually parked his car in the driveway of a two-story brick house with a manicured lawn and shrubbery that probably looked beautiful in season.

  Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

  Now where had that come from? Oh, yeah. Her mother used to recite that nursery rhyme line every time they pulled into their driveway.

  Dawn’s throat tightened. God, how she missed her.

  She shook it off and stared at the house. Well, Dr. Heinze, I now know where you live.

  What she was going to do with that information, Dawn hadn’t a clue, but she tucked the address away, just in case …

  She wound her way back to Queens Boulevard and Rego Park, and slowed as she passed the Tower Diner where she used to wait tables … where she first met Jerry Bethlehem or whatever his real name was … where he started spinning the lies that led her into his bed and got her pregnant with the child she was now chasing.

  Full circle.

  Her hands seemed to have a life of their own as they turned the wheel, taking her off Queens Boulevard into the confusing local residential streets. She headed for 68th Drive, which paralleled 68th Road and 68th Avenue. She slowed before an older, stucco-walled house with high-peaked gables and an attached two-car garage. On impulse she pulled into the driveway.

  Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

  Mom’s house. The house Dawn had left to move in with Jerry. She remembered it being better kept, then realized it had been almost a year since her mother had died in there, leaving a huge hole in her life.

  A sob burst from her as she saw the foreclosure sign. Mom had loved that place, had worked so hard to earn it, and now …

  She stared at the darkened windows.

  What would you do, Mom? Would you tell me to find my baby or let him go?

  Dawn realized her mother might very well tell her to let him go. She’d warned her against Jerry from the get-go, but Dawn wouldn’t listen. And Dawn was totally sure she’d tell her now that nothing good could ever come from something that came from Jerry.

  And maybe she was right.

  But I can’t let it go, Mom. I can’t.

  A car pulled out of a driveway two doors down—the Schanz house. It turned this way and slowed as it approached, the driver probably wondering about a car parked outside the deserted Pickering place. Dawn’s pulse picked up as she recognized Mrs. Schanz behind the wheel. Couldn’t be seen here by that old busybody—not when she was a “person of interest” in her mother’s death.

  She turned her head, praying the biddy wouldn’t recognize her in the failing light.

  After Mrs. Schanz moved on, Dawn backed out and gunned away. She headed back to Manhattan, but she’d be back in the morning to trail Dr. Heinze from his house to the foundation—just to make sure he didn’t make any stops between.

  She shook her head, realizing how this had totally become a sickness. But she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t.

  9

  A voice had invaded Hank’s head. A cut from his conversation with Szeto kept playing and replaying as he walked up from the Lodge toward Allen Street.

  “The One speaks to me. He will tell me first.”

  “I thought he spoke to your boss—”

  “No. Speaks to me.”

  Couple that with how distracted Drexler had seemed the last time he’d seen him—

  No, more than distracted—upset. Drexler was pretty damn near the most together, focused guy he’d ever met. But not yesterday. Yesterday he looked like he was being held together by spit and baling wire.

  Had something gone wrong at the Order? Their High Council had an inside track on everything connected to the Change, and Drexler was Hank’s connection to those bozos. Hank was counting on riding with them to Mover-Shaker status after the Change.

  But then Drexler had made that “the most surprised of all” remark.

  Hank had to get all this straightened out, and the only guy he knew who could do that was Drexler.

  But he wasn’t answering his phone. Hank had left half a dozen messages.

  Only one thing to do. Go over there and get some face time, whether Drexler liked it or not.

  Hank reached Allen Street and found it at a standstill. Something must have happened on the outward-bound Williamsburg Bridge around the corner. He’d planned on taking a cab but Drexler’s place wasn’t all that far away. He decided to walk.

  10

  “Hello, Mister Drexler.”

  Ernst had just stepped into his
dark and supposedly empty apartment. He fumbled with the grocery bag he was carrying, almost dropping it in shock at the sound of the voice.

  The One would occasionally surprise him by suddenly appearing in his office or apartment. But this was not the One’s voice. Ernst almost wished it were. It would mean …

  “Who are you?”

  “An old acquaintance.”

  Ernst felt for the wall switch, found and flipped it. The light revealed a nondescript man in his midthirties relaxing in a chair on the far side of the room. He looked like someone off the street: jeans, baseball cap, sweatshirt. He was clean shaven, with brown hair, brown eyes … and was that one of Ernst’s Grolsch lagers in his hand?

  Something about his face ignited a spark of familiarity, but not bright enough for recognition.

  “You look familiar…”

  “Remember your little sojourn at the Lodge in Johnson, New Jersey?”

  And then it all came crashing back.

  “Jack.”

  The man nodded. “Your former groundskeeper.”

  Controlling his initial shock, Ernst walked across his front room and set the bag on the counter. As the answers to a number of long-running questions began to flash through his mind, he realized he might be in mortal danger.

  Might be. Jack certainly had changed from the skinny teenager Ernst had known. He’d filled out but remained wiry instead of bulky. He didn’t look the least bit threatening. In fact, he appeared perfectly innocuous.

  But if what Ernst suspected were true, he was anything but. Hard to believe, looking at him now, but no one knew better than Ernst how appearances could deceive.

  Talk … get him talking.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “The door.”

  “And how did you reach the door?”

  “The stairs.”

  Ernst clenched his jaw. The building was supposed to have excellent security. He’d have to have a talk with the management.

  “I have armed guards from the Order who routinely…”

  Jack was shaking his head. “No, you don’t. Weeks ago I followed you from the Lodge and I’ve been watching this place on and off since. You don’t have any extra security. And why should you? No one outside the Order knows who you are.”

  True. He had no enemies. Except perhaps the man seated before him.

  Stay cool and keep him talking.

  “Rather ironic, don’t you think, that while you’ve been stalking me, I’ve been looking for you?”

  “I assumed that,” Jack said.

  “Am I so predictable?”

  “After you learned that Weezy Myers was Weezy Connell of Johnson, En-Jay, and her brother Eddie was a member of the Order, I figured it wouldn’t take you long to start wondering what had happened to the third musketeer.”

  “Yes, it was idle at first. Then I learned that you had seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth.”

  “Still on Earth, just off the radar.”

  “But now you’re here. Any particular reason?”

  “A little conversation.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how the conversation goes.”

  That had just enough of an ominous ring to bunch the muscles at the back of Ernst’s neck.

  “Will we be a while?”

  “Depends.”

  Ernst didn’t ask again on what. Instead he pointed to the green bottle in Jack’s hand.

  “I could use one of those. Shall I get you another?”

  “Thanks. I’ll come with you.”

  He realized it had been too much to hope for Jack to leave him alone in the kitchen, but it had been worth a try.

  “I need to put some food away as well.”

  A few months ago he’d found a wonderful German butcher, a man who made superb bratwurst. Brats had always been a comfort food for him, but over the years he had avoided too many of them for health reasons. After yesterday he didn’t see much point in worrying about his health, and he was in desperate need of comfort.

  Jack hovered as he placed the perishables in the refrigerator, and Ernst thought about that term.

  Perishable … we’re all perishable, but am I about to perish?

  He removed a pair of bottles.

  “Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself,” Jack said. “Not too many people stock Grolsch. Hard to resist.”

  Keep him talking …

  “Yes, the Dutch make excellent lagers, but not quite up to my favorite—Märzen.”

  He found an opener and popped the caps. He handed a bottle to Jack and grabbed a Pilsner glass for himself—he didn’t drink from bottles. They returned to the front room where Ernst made a show of searching for coasters. He knew exactly where they were but opened two wrong drawers first. He pulled a Taser from the second and palmed it, thumbing the ON switch before quickly slipping it into his suit coat pocket as he pretended to discover the coasters in the third.

  Now he felt a little safer. He had no idea how this might turn out, but at least he could protect himself.

  He handed Jack a coaster and they settled into upholstered chairs, facing across a glass-top table.

  “If I may ask,” he said, keeping his tone light, “how did you, as you phrase it, drop off the radar so completely? After a cursory search found no trace of you, I put some very skilled people to work looking for you. They came up with nothing.”

  He shrugged. “I was never on the radar. Never bothered applying for a Social Security number, always worked for cash.” A quick smile. “You always paid me cash, remember?”

  Ernst nodded. He remembered. Petty cash.

  “A long time ago.” Half a lifetime.

  “Why were you so intent on finding me?”

  “You were a blank space that needed filling in. A mystery man. Brother Connell said you were a repairman, but I began to wonder if you might be related to another mystery man.”

  “Really? And who might that be?”

  How did he phrase this? Should he choose his words carefully? Why? Jack’s appearance here pretty much confirmed his suspicions, although he still found it hard to believe.

  Might as well simply come out and say it.

  “Someone involved with the Connells was using deadly force against the Order.”

  Not a trace of surprise in Jack’s eyes as he said, “Now why would anyone do that? I mean, considering the caliber of people you sent against them.”

  Ernst felt his saliva began to evaporate. Jack had just admitted to being that man. One thing to suspect, but to have it confirmed in such a matter-of-fact tone …

  The skinny, innocent kid who had mowed the Lodge’s lawn had grown into a cold-blooded killer. Granted, he had been facing equally cold-blooded killers, but he had proved just as ruthless and much more efficient.

  Ernst was trapped here with a very, very dangerous man. Was he armed? Of course he was.

  Keep him talking.

  He forced calm and shook his head. No need to fake bafflement. “How did that boy pulling the lawn mower behind his bike wind up…?” He shook his head again.

  “Necessity.”

  “What could—?”

  He held up a hand. “I didn’t come here to tell my life story.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I’ve got a question, and you’ve got the answer. At least I’m assuming you do.”

  Only “a” question? That was a relief. But what would happen if he couldn’t answer it?

  “You seem awfully sure of that. Let’s see if you’re right. Go ahead: Ask.”

  Jack spoke and the question seemed to hover in the air between them. Clear, succinct, to the point. He could almost see the words floating before him, but he couldn’t quite grasp their meaning. It sounded as if he’d said … but no … he couldn’t have.

  “Pardon?”

  “How do I go about finding the One?”

  Ernst’s muscles seiz
ed, freezing him in place. His first impression had been correct. He’d truly asked about the One. But … impossible. He couldn’t know about him.

  And then Ernst flashed back on a conversation with the One, perhaps a month ago. He had appeared in Ernst’s office and asked what he knew about the Order’s Lodge in Johnson, New Jersey. He’d made Ernst recount his stay there in excruciating detail. Ernst hadn’t perceived it at the time, but in light of what was transpiring at this moment, it occurred to him that the One had seemed especially interested in the young groundskeeper and his girlfriend who had invaded the Lodge one night with near disastrous consequences. Ernst had thought he was interested in the event, but now it was clear he’d been interested in Jack.

  An unexpected symmetry: the One asking about Jack, and now Jack asking about the One.

  “The one?” Ernst fought to maintain a neutral, mildly curious expression as he took a sip of his beer. He noticed the glass shaking in his hand. “The one what?”

  Jack looked annoyed and the mild brown eyes hardened. “No games. I asked you a straight question. I expect a straight answer. You know exactly who I’m talking about: the One … the point man for the Otherness … Rasalom.”

  Ernst choked and spewed beer across the table.

  “Don’t speak his name!”

  But a bigger shock than hearing the name said aloud was the realization that Jack knew it. Only the High Council of Seven and precious few others were privileged with the One’s name. Even Ernst wasn’t supposed to know it, but he’d heard it from his father shortly before he died.

  Jack merely stared at him, waiting.

  Ernst stared back as other connections formed. Jack knew something only a few in the Order were aware of. So had another man … the bearded man who’d accosted him in Central Park. He’d known about the One and the Fhinntmanchca. He’d pressed a good Austrian pistol under his chin and asked him questions.

  And then Tasered him.

  He remembered the feel of the current jolting through him, running from the back of his neck down his spine and limbs, coursing through his chest. Pain and helplessness—his useless muscles felt as if they’d melted.

  He remembered the humiliation.